1. Technical Field
This disclosure relates generally to non-contact scanning and, more particularly, to a method and system for spatially locating a laser vibrometer relative to an object.
2. Background Information
Machinery components or objects (e.g., gas turbine rotor blades) can be inspected using non-contact scanning. Vibrationally induced deflections and stresses of the component, for example, can be determined using data measured by a laser vibrometer. The deflections and stresses can subsequently be processed to predict or model how the component will respond to vibrations during operation of the component within the machinery (e.g., performance of the rotor blade within the gas turbine engine). In order to produce accurate predictions and models, however, the position of the vibrometer and, thus, the position of where the data is being measured on the component surface must be located relative to the component. The vibrometer can be located, for example, by (i) mechanically aligning the vibrometer and the rotor blade in known positions, or (ii) performing post processing alignment procedures such as, for example, normalizing measurement data to a normal or reference coordinate space. Both methods for locating the vibrometer, however, require certain base assumptions (e.g., that the component is close to a nominal geometric location and shape, that the surface of the component can be represented by a two dimensional planar surface, that non-scalar image data can be used as a reference, etc.) and can increase time and costs associated with performing the inspection.